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Voters agreed to let as many as seven Las Vegas-style casinos open in New York, approved an
increase to the minimum wage in New Jersey, and set a tax on the legal sale of recreational
marijuana in Colorado.

The statewide ballot questions were among 31 decided in six states across the United States on
Tuesday. The measures focused on issues related to business, taxes and borrowing, a break from
recent years in which social issues such as abortion and gay marriage were put to referendums.

In Colorado, while approving a 25 percent tax on sales of marijuana a year after legalizing the
drug, voters rejected an income-tax increase to raise money for schools.

In New York, voters supported Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to bring jobs to struggling parts of the
state by allowing development of casinos beyond Indian reservations. The decision permits as many
as seven, with four in the first seven years, all of them upstate, to draw New York City residents
and tourists to the region. It won with 57 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results
from the state Board of Elections.

The measure was supported by Kuala Lumpur-based Genting Bhd., which would continue to run the
only slot machines in New York City for the next several years, at the Aqueduct Racetrack in
Queens.

At least four casino developers are planning to compete for licenses that will be available in
the Catskill Mountains, about 100 miles northwest of Manhattan, including Foxwoods Resort Casino,
Empire Resorts and the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority.

In other votes:

• A proposition in Washington state to require labels on genetically modified food was trailing
yesterday, with

55 percent of voters opposed, according to the secretary of state’s office. The measure was
fought by Monsanto and DuPont. California voters defeated a similar proposal last year after
opposition from companies.

• Texas voters allowed the state to put $2 billion of its reserves into a fund to help pay for
water projects. Gov. Rick Perry endorsed the plan, which will finance reservoirs, distribution
systems and other public works to keep pace with the state’s fast-growing population.

• Voters in a half-dozen counties in rural Colorado rejected a call to break away and create a
new state, dealing a serious setback to an effort that always seemed a long shot. Voters in Weld,
Logan, Sedgwick, Elbert, Lincoln and Moffat counties opposed the initiative, according to
unofficial returns. The advisory measure was approved in Cheyenne, Washington, Phillips, Yuma and
Kit Carson counties.

Also in Colorado, three cities rejected oil- and gas-production work that relies on fracking,
unofficial election returns showed yesterday. Boulder, Lafayette and Fort Collins passed measures
to suspend or ban the technique formally known as hydraulic fracturing.

• In Massachusetts, voters knocked down a proposal to build a $1 billion resort-casino at the
Suffolk Downs racetrack in East Boston, according to the Associated Press.

• In New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie won a second term, voters bucked his opposition to
raising the wages of the state’s lowest-paid workers, supporting a $1-an-hour increase by 61
percent, with all but 1 percent of the precincts reporting, according to the AP.

The measure would lift the minimum wage to $8.25 an hour from $7.25, followed by annual
cost-of-living adjustments.

Information from the Los Angeles Times and Reuters was included in this story.